Saturday, 30 April 2011

It's a mystery. Contempt Party candidate Jim Hillyer has the standard "Here for you" slogan attached to his campaign material but it appears nobody in Lethbridge can confirm that he has actually been present in his riding during the election.From here:

"Very few people in Lethbridge have even met him or seen him. "It's kind of bizarre." On Wednesday, criticism of the first-time federal politician ramped up when a local student group questioned Hillyer over his resume. They accuse the Raymond man of emphasizing his graduate education, but not revealing in campaign literature he studied at a non-accredited university.

That school is George Wythe University in Cedar City, Utah, which confirmed Hillyer was granted a master's degree in political economy in 2005 and has studied for a PhD in constitutional law. Hillyer's website and Facebook page note the degrees, but don't name the institution. [...]

Fred Hillyer said in an interview from his home in Stirling [...] "They haveno clue the stature of this man." He defended his brother against accusations of dishonesty, saying Jim Hillyer never claimed the university was accredited, but people simply jumped to conclusions.

He described his brother as someone with a keen interest in politics, dating back to childhood when he proclaimed he wanted to be prime minister. "Every decision he has made in his life has geared him up to this moment," Fred Hillyer said. "He's not an opportunist. This is something he's strived for forever."

Move over SHithead. Here's someone more qualified than you: he's studied constitutional law. Of which particular country? No one seems to know.

Staring down the barrel of another who-knows-how-many years of Chairman Harper has me praying our conservative Conservative will lift his skirts and show the true colour of his crazy. That he’ll go temporarily off-track and bust a move like Trump is in his pre-bid for the U.S. presidency.

We know Harper is a control freak/borderline psychopath. (See Montreal Simon, passim.) Not to mention a scary TheoCon misogynist. (See DAMMIT JANET!, passim.)

But he keeps himself very tightly wrapped.

Harper’s control of journalists, of what comes out of the mouths of his MPs and of his own image is unparalleled in Canadian history. Harper stays in power mainly because he keeps his extremism under wraps.

And compared to Donald Trump’s bombastic political showmanship, that makes Harper all the more diabolical.

When an relentless reporter presses for an answer, as Terry Milewski intrepidly attempts, Stevie Peevie stands back and lets his rabid supporters shout the question down. It happened again this morning (via Twitter, link below*), with the HarperBots adding, 'Shut down the CBC!'

Here's the DJ! Final Stretch Election Challenge: To the reporter or citizen who can force King Stephen to blow a gasket -- preferably on camera with good audio -- what? Hm. What motivates reporters? Money? Fame? Undying gratitude from a desperate people?

If it's dough, I'd throw in at least a hundred bucks to see it. If it's sex. . .

But it was during the press conference that followed the speech that the temperature rose. CBC Television’s Terry Milewski asked whether Mr. Harper would respect the Governor-General’s decision, if he called on a second-placed party to form government after a Conservative minority was brought down. The Prime Minister said he wasn’t going to speculate on what might happen after the election, despite the fact his whole campaign has been based on conjecture about what might happen post May 2. Mr. Milewski accused the Conservative leader of ducking the question and repeatedly asked him to answer. By this point, the assembled partisans felt it their duty to jump in for their man. “Shut down the CBC,” shouted one man. Another behind Mr. Harper was screaming, gesticulating and visibly upset. To be fair to Mr. Harper, he gestured for calm and maintained his composure. In days gone by, he would have responded to such a challenge by attacking the source.

Quite why the press conference needed to be held in front of a hostile crowd is not clear, unless it was an attempt to intimidate journalists. Other parties hold the presser in a separate room after the event.

Party spindoctors suggest Mr. Harper likes the visuals of being surrounded by supporters but it lends the appearance of a lynch mob when the inevitable happens. One suspects the visuals of this morning’s episode will be replayed on newscasts across the country and confirm many people’s impressions of the Conservative Party as the home of anger, intolerance and blind partisanship.

Regular readers are no doubt aware that we at DJ! do not care for Stephen Harper. The reckless vandalism he and his ignorant gang have inflicted on our democracy -- with a mere minority -- has been stunning.

The Fucking Useless Opposition® have been, well, fucking useless.

Pollsters, pundits, and now ReformaTory 'insiders' say that a Harper majority is now out of reach.

We are not comforted.

In fact, we are still scared shitless.

Oh. Look. This guy, one of the most respected constitutional scholars in Canada is scared shitless too. It's 3 minutes and 13 seconds long. Not a big time commitment.

If you know anyone who is planning not to vote or who is planning to vote blindly, please send them this link and ask them to invest 3 minutes and 13 seconds in watching it.

Maybe also send along this link to a guide to strategic voting. You could also input your friend's postal code and send the resulting link. You know, just to be helpful.

Seriously, when Professor Peter Russell is afraid, we should all be very afraid.

IMHO, I suspect that deep-down, she wanted the pregnancy to end in still-birth or miscarriage.

Palin wore Spanx or whatever to hide it, and when her labour came on unexpectedly, she deliberately avoided giving birth at hospitals that would have provided her fetus with the best chances of survival.

Her behaviour is not consistent with that of a woman reconciled to a difficult pregnancy and taking all precautions needed to ensure the safe delivery of a fragile fetus in an environment that provided the most advanced medical resources and support.

By her own account, Sarah Palin's pregnancy was a "high-risk" one: she was 44 years old, and it was her seventh pregnancy (she had had two previous miscarriages); the baby had Down's Syndrome and was about to be born prematurely.

The fact that Palin, despite the obvious complications, embarked on a ten-hour plane journey from Dallas to Anchorage with a stopover in Seattle, bypassing the first-rate Baylor Regional Medical Centre in Dallas with a neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) situated ten minutes away from the conference she was attending, is mystifying – even more so since Palin then elected not to attend Providence hospital in Anchorage, which is also equipped with excellent NICU facilities that would have ensured a safe delivery for her premature son. [...]

This issue is not about misogyny, as Megan Carpentier claimed in her recent commentary in the Guardian. We are not misogynist and we have no interest in examining Sarah Palin's "vagina". The majority of our readers, supporters and researchers are female, and they are usually women with experience in giving birth. There are also many readers who have medical backgrounds who strongly question Palin's account of Trig's birth. [...]

The questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy are relevant, because they raise issues of trust about a woman who almost became the vice-president of the US and who still has a large following and political influence. Journalists who now quickly declare this matter "closed" without having examined the evidence should be reminded that former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt is on record saying that Palin's book Going Rogue comprises "not 70%, but 100% fiction".

As well, here's something that might lead to Memories of heaving and *throning up*.

Remember #SHithead's performance of John Lennon's Imagine, during the first week of the election campaign?

Whoops! Sorry about that. No, he hasn't attempted an encore of that song, but a terrific opinion piece by Geoff Olson about that exploitative photo op recently surfaced.

The first time was last December, on the anniversary of Lennon’s death, when the rockin’ leader played a few bars on the piano at the annual Tory convention party. This time he went all out, singing part of the tune in a YouTube-destined duet with 10-year-old Maria Aragon.

Obviously, the man could not have picked a song more opposed to his stated beliefs — religious, cultural and political — than Lennon’s 1971 hymn to secularism, socialism and world peace. [...]

Reporters usually don’t get any closer to the Prime Minister than Somali pirates to an American destroyer. Yet with all the camera flashes and shutters going off in the YouTube clip, it’s clear that this was a tightly scripted photo op. The Harperites already have their “base” onside—the evangelical crowd, the oil patch, Washington and Wall Street. There is little need to convince them of Conservative intentions.

However, they have a public relations problem with voters in the centre, particularly women, who see Harper as a hybrid of cold fish and cold warrior, running with scissors through the social safety net and toward an ecological cliff. The Tories are clearly desperate to humanize their leader.

When the wheels will have finally stopped spinning, the shrieeeking silenced and the last celebratory tweet re-tweeted, a veritable army of pundits will descend upon Harpocalypse to point fingers.

From my perspective, Contempt Party leader's foolish attempt to co-opt this hymn to peace will stand alone as the most MASSIVE Con job FAIL of the campaign, a pathetic attempt by the ReformaTories to make a flesh-and-blood statesman out of an amateur economist and world-class manipulator.

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

We're talking about the Contempt Party whose specialty, during the last 5 years, has been prevarication upon prevarication. It has even convinced its base supporters that there was no contempt, only charges made up by the Opposition in Parliament.

The *victim card* is what Karla Homolka played, when the police didn't yet have the solid evidence they needed to demonstrate that she was not only an accomplice in Bernardo's crimes, but may have actually initiated some of the more repulsive violent crimes committed by the couple.

Four years ago, to great fanfare, the federal Conservatives opened an ombudsman’s office to help victims of crime. [...] To date, the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime has released only one annual report. Two others were filed to the federal justice minister but, for more than a year, they have remained secret. [...]

The missing reports, from 2008 and 2009, would have been made public earlier this month — to coincide with the sixth annual national victims of crime awareness week — but the “coalition forced an unnecessary election and shut down Parliament,” said Geneviève Breton, the justice minister’s spokesperson.

“My sense is they created the office because it made a good press release,” said Steve Sullivan, whose federal appointment to a three-year term as ombudsman ended last April. [...]

“They use the word victim a lot but it’s done to support or justify the get-tough-on-crime agenda, which really doesn’t do a whole lot for most victims of crime,” said Sullivan, who is now executive director of Ottawa Victim Services, a community-based agency that works primarily with women who have been abused by their partners. [...]

The word “victim” appears 40 times throughout the Conservative party platform.

At the start of the election campaign, DAMMIT JANET! started a meme about Con candidates. Remember this one, where we questioned Parm Gill's claims about processing visas and immigration applications? It's particulary relevant, given some applicants move quickly through the system while others are plagued by incomprehensible delays.

Well that issue has come back to bite MinJKenney on his big white ass.

And while we're on the topic of catholic fundamentalism, here's a story about Gay ... err, happy Paree and French RWNJ (right wing nut jobs) that'll bring a twinkle to your eye.

Close to the Pompidou Centre and just across from Saint-Merri church, a stylish and discreet "Love shop" could go unnoticed. But it provokes some Catholics who have decided to go to court to remove its sex toys from the neighbourhood.

Founded in 2004 [...] the Paris and Marseille-based stores offer accessories to "spice up your sex life, feed your fantasies and explore new sensations in a friendly, sexy and delicious way." Led primarily by women, the shops are designed so that one can enter without embarrassment [...].

The National Confederation of Catholic Family Associations (CNAFC) and the association Love and Family have filed complaints against the company in court because the shop is located 90 meters from the Saint-Merri elementary school.

If Contempt party leader SHithead and his Cons get the majority he demands, you can expect catholic zealots will lobby MinJKenney to shut down small businesses such as the one belonging to the married couple who created We-Vibe and successfully marketed it around the world.

Update: No response yet from Auditor General (it's not clear she is the appropriate Parliamentary authority to accept the charge) regarding Ruby Dhalla's public request.

Those had to be posted. After all, DJ! has displayed freaky frightful photos of Contempt leader SHithead, as well as one of Jumping Jack Flash and also, a toothy Lizzie May.

Michael Ignatieff was on Tout le monde en parle, a very popular Radio-Canada program on Sunday evening. He was asked to give a one-word capsule description of all the provinces where he's campaigned during this election. I forget what he said about the others, but he summed up Québec as *fromage*.

Oooookay dokay. That was unfortunate, albeit amusing in a warped, you-had-to-be-there kind of way. And it explains why Iggy appears to be illustrating the proper way to milk a dairy cow.

The top photo find of this federal election has to be that vintage B&W snapshot of the student activist Gilles Duceppe, posted above.

Monday, 25 April 2011

In Canada during every election, strategic voting comes up, with people arguing passionately on either side.

Well, things are different this time. Strategic voting has never had the Internet and social media backing that it does now. Canadians are connected as never before and many of them clearly see the threats that a Harper majority represents.

GREAT NEWS FOR STRATEGIC VOTING! I have just finished comparing both Catch 22 and Project Democracy riding by riding, and they have picked the same candidate in every single riding except one (Beauport-Limoilou.) The fact the two sites arrived at the exact same picks completely independently of the other proves they're solid: We can take them to the polls!

IMPORTANT NOTE: the riding projections are up to date on PD, but they are still in the process of updating their candidate picks. Meantime, look ONLY at the riding projections.

Both sites are recommending we check back in May before we go out to vote because things can still change in the last week.

Stephen Harper’s refusal to reopen the abortion debate risks suppressing the Conservative vote, a leading voice of Canadian social conservatism says.

“There is just no energy out there,” Charles McVety, the evangelic leader and Christian activist, said in an interview. “Frankly, my fear for Stephen Harper is that being so overt standing against the pro-lifers, he risks not motivating Conservative voters.”

Mr. McVety noted the Conservatives lost 160,000 votes between the 2006 and 2008 elections. He blames Mr. Harper’s decision just before the 2008 campaign to block Conservative MP Ken Epps’s private member’s bill that would have made it a separate offence for killing a fetus when a pregnant woman was murdered.

So, why are these socon organizations pimping for Stephen Harper? Why are they are ignoring the fact that the Christian Heritage Party welcomes social conservatives, and that Stephen Harper keeps kicking them in the teeth?

Has someone promised them something? Do they know something the rest of us don't know? Or, do they just have masochistic tendencies? I'd love to know the answer to that.

It is confusing. One -- albeit MASSIVE -- force is chiding Harper, two other pretty powerful groups are backing him.

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Global TV's @PeterHarris shares on Twitter a number of interesting observations as he follows CLSH's campaign to BC.

For example, Con supporters who attended a Harper event at a church in Burnaby were subjected to a rigorous security search that included their plastic food containers. Contempt Party leader gave a speech that was fully translated into Cantonese. Then the pastor asked gawd" to build a wall of protection for Harper 'from evil actions... evil people... evil intentions'" and, one would imagine, evil tupperware.Earlier in the day, SHithead said $11 billion in cuts weren't critical to balancing books by 2015 and continued to avoid answering questions where he would cut to find savings. Yet, when the issue of trusting him with a majority came up, Harper said voters should constantly question any politician - with the exception of CLSH, obviously.

Harris also said that Contempt Party leader met "with half dozen student protestors after his event today and talked about student debt and climate change"; no indication whether these *protestors* were pre-registered, screened, vetted and body-searched in case they were carrying terrorist tupperware.

Update: The Burnaby Alliance Church is evangelical, of course. More about the event, here.

On April 16, the Straight reported that Ms Young replaced Hu Jintao with photoshopped Stevie. (Go to link to see for yourself.)

Now, we have the ongoing brouhaha about the candidate and one of BC's most notorious residents, Ripudaman Singh Malik.

But Young, who refused to speak to reporters on the matter on Saturday, has not explained how she didn't know who Malik was, given the publicity surrounding him during the Air India trials — the biggest criminal case in Canadian history — as well as his high-profile lawsuit against the B.C. government, the CBC's Terry Milewski reported.

After a debate on Cantonese radio yesterday, she dodged reporters saying she had to pee.

And yes, that's the follow-up question that Terry Milewski was trying to ask BubbleBoy when he got drowned out.

Conservative partisans deliberately drowned out a journalist’s question to Mr. Harper during a Greater Toronto Area campaign stop Saturday as he was being asked about a Vancouver candidate’s endorsement by a man acquitted in the Air India bombing.

The Tory Leader stood quietly while members of his staff and a crowd of about 500 at a Coptic Christian centre clapped and cheered loudly to prevent a CBC reporter from quizzing him further on his defence of Vancouver South candidate Wai Young.

Foster children in Michigan would use their state-funded clothing allowance only in thrift stores under a plan suggested by State Senator Bruce Caswell.

Caswell says he wants to make sure that state money set aside to buy clothes for foster children and kids of the working poor is actually used for that purpose.

He says they should get "gift cards" to be used only at Salvation Army, Goodwill or other thrift stores.

"I never had anything new," Caswell says. "I got all the hand-me-downs. And my dad, he did a lot of shopping at the Salvation Army, and his comment was -- and quite frankly it's true -- once you're out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes."

Gilda Jacobs is CEO of the Michigan League for Human Services. She’s not a fan of the thrift shop gift card idea.

"Honestly, I was flabbergasted," Jacobs says. "I really couldn't believe this. Because I think, gosh, is this where we've gone in this state? I think that there’s the whole issue of dignity. You’re saying to somebody, you don’t deserve to go in and buy a new pair of gym shoes. You know, for a lot of foster kids, they already have so much stacked against them.”

With the Canadian deficit at a historic high and the ReformaTories -- who ran it up, note -- poised to take over the country with a no-holds-barred MAJORITY, really, I mean, how much more money could they blow on jets and jails before October 19, 2015, which is the fixed date of the next election, assuming of course that they adhere to the law this time?

Could they spend enough and cut enough taxes to get us into the kind of economic mess that only sending foster kids to Sally Ann can address?

It may be both the peak of paranoia and the ultimate insult to those who showed their mettle on the day of - and the days that followed – the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

As the result of an amendment attached to a law that – after years of Congressional battling – finally provides benefits and relief to those who are suffering any number of serious illnesses and disabilities in return for their good works on that terrible day and the clean-up effort that followed, 9-11 responders will not be eligible to collect these benefits until an FBI check confirms that they are not terrorists.

Seriously.

But wait. It gets even more insane.

It should be noted that the Stearns amendment was accepted only after the GOP attempted to attach anti-abortion and other like amendments in a perverse effort to force Democrats to either vote against the bill or swallow GOP social agenda items as the price of getting the 9-11 responders the help they deserve.

The author, Rick Ungar, then sniffs:

Playing politics with the 9-11 heroes takes a very special type of politician – a politician like Cliff Stearns.

Friday, 22 April 2011

A convicted rapist out on bail has been arrested along with his cousin for brutally beating his own aunt and another widow to death in the name of family honour. Tension prevails in the area while the accused is unrepentant.

The two women were attacked at Ranila village in Bhiwani district late Sunday night. The horrific crime was committed in front of at least 200 villagers, including dozens of women, but nobody came to the two women's rescue.

"The bodies were lying unattended in the open and nobody had touched them till the arrival of police," said a police official.

The victims were identified as Suman, 35, the mother of an eight-year-old girl, and Shakuntala, 40, the mother of a 15-year-old boy. They were beaten up badly with sticks by Shakuntala's nephew Naresh, 23, and his cousin Subhash, 22, police said.

From here. Those acts are also terrorism. It serves as an example to the fate that awaits other women, if they dare to attempt to evade the control of male propriety. It ensures that they obey, and live in a state of fear.

On Thursday morning, several audio recordings appeared on YouTube purporting to be conversations between two businessmen prominent in the Quebec construction industry, Tony Accurso and Bernard Poulin.

In what sounds like a telephone conversation, two people discuss how they would work to influence the appointment process to choose the next chief executive of the port authority. Their choice, just like that of the federal government and the city of Montreal, was Abdallah, a former executive director of the city until 2006. He was subsequently employed by one of Accurso’s companies.

The voice reported to be that of Poulin says he would talk to Montreal Tory Senator Leo Housakos, then a prominent party fundraiser, and ask him to bring Soudas, his good friend, on board.

“It’s not through Leo’s relationship to (Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence) Cannon that he’s good, it’s through Dimitri Soudas,” says the voice identified as Poulin. “So far, he appears to be very capable of delivering the goods.”

They discuss “compensation” for Soudas if he can “deliver something” for them on the appointment process.

When questioned about the latest development in this unfolding scandal, Contempt Party leader Harper said allegations about Soudas' actions are "categorically false" ... which might actually mean, in true Con fashion ... *correct in a different category* ... *untrue, but only in the details* ... or something else along those lines.

In the Excited States, a governor who vetoed hundreds of bills that his legislature passed announced that he's seeking his party's support to run for president.

Self-made millionaire and former two-term New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson said on Thursday he will seek the Republican nomination for U.S. president in 2012. As a state governor, Johnson pushed for lower taxes and lower government spending, and set records by vetoing some 750 pieces of legislation.[...]

Johnson mentioned President Barack Obama just once, saying he supports repealing Obama's health care overhaul legislation. But he also criticized Republicans, saying they also are to blame for out-of-control spending. He said he opposed the Iraq war from the start and though he initially supported the war in Afghanistan, he no longer believes American troops should be there.

He also supports legalizing marijuana as a way to eliminate much of the violence along the Mexico border.

The US political scene is almost as entertaining as Canada's, whenever the focus is on polarizing, headline-seeking, RWNJ-placating personalities.

By the way, a veto is just a formal ∧NOT.

However. A vote is a vote is a vote is a vote. Do it! Advance polling starts tomorrow, and even if you didn't receive your card in the mail, call Elections Canada to find out where and how you can vote.

“As long as I am prime minister we are not opening the abortion debate,” Mr. Harper declared. “The government will not bring forward any such legislation and any such legislation that is brought forward will be defeated as long as I am prime minister.”

Kady is allll over the mechanics of 'will be defeated' bit. Basically, how?

My other question is: Who will define what 'anti-abortion' legislation is?

Because remember the sponsors of the last two private members' sneaky back-door attempts to throw up barriers to legal abortion both swore up hill and down dale that their bills had nothing, nada, zip, zero, to do with abortion. Both Bruinooge and Epp lied their asses off all over the country on any media that would have them, saying that anyone who thought their bills had anything to do with abortion were paranoid libtard feminazis.

Wednesday, 20 April 2011

Brad Trost, incumbent for Saskatoon-Humboldt, addressed the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association’s annual convention Saturday and thanked its members for their help in killing federal funding for the group.

In a recording of the speech, obtained by the Liberals and provided to the Toronto Star and Le Devoir, Trost claims a number of parliamentary victories for the pro-life movement, including a decision to deny funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Trost said he and “many” other MPs helped spearhead efforts to round up petitions “to defund Planned Parenthood.”

“Let me just tell you, and I cannot tell you specifically how we used it, but those petitions were very, very useful and they were part of what we used to defund Planned Parenthood [...]

Oh. wait. The father who shot a mother and her daughter is a christian. More about this hateful crime of violence, from here:

A man upset about his high school-age daughter's relationship with a woman killed the girlfriend and her mother in a Southeast Austin home Monday night, culminating a months-long feud between the families, police said Tuesday.

Jose Alfonso Aviles, 45 , went to the house [...] where Norma Hurtado, 24, lived with her mother and shot both women after knocking on the door, officials said Tuesday. He has been charged with capital murder and could receive life in prison or the death penalty if convicted. [...]

Aviles' daughter, who was in the home at the time, found Norma Hurtado and her mother, 57-year-old Maria Hurtado , after they were shot, according to police and court documents.

The daughter's "family was quite upset over this relationship," Austin police Lt. Gena Curtis said Tuesday. "This had been an ongoing dispute between these families and it turned tragic, into a horrific act of violence with the death of two individuals."

The daughter told police that she and Norma Hurtado had been involved in a lesbian relationship, which her father did not approve of, and that there had been disturbances between Aviles and Norma Hurtado, according to an arrest affidavit. An online records search for those incidents turned up a report of a sexual assault in September and a family disturbance in October; however, police did not release details of the incidents.

A US blogger has tagged this as a christian "honour killing". It certainly meets the criteria: murderous violence directed at women by male family members + religious ideology + patriarchal control = "honour killing".

So islamophobes, start your Gawd-given shrieeeking engines for all to hear.

A burning issue that needs to be addressed is not voter apathy, but candidate apathy.

Janyce McGregor is making a list.

Once again in this election, candidates across Canada stand accused of dodging invitations to participate in all-candidates debates, forums and/or media panels.

To try to make sense of it all collectively, I've started a list.

So far, the examples available show mostly Conservatives. But if you know of more examples that should be included here, we'd be happy to receive updates. And I'll keep adding them to this list as I receive them.

Because so many of the reports thus far involved Conservative candidates, I contacted the Conservatives' national campaign office. Here's what spokesman Ryan Sparrow wrote about the direction given to local candidates when it comes to all-candidates' forums:

We provide support for candidates to participate in candidates debates, but we don't instruct them not to attend debates. Most candidates would prefer to meet with voters one on one though instead of debating their opponents in crowds of committed supporters of the different parties.

Eeee! 'Crowds of committed supporters of different parties'! Jeez, that's almost as scary as a bunch university students running around. John Baird nearly wet his pants while squeaking out:

"I'm not sure what a flash mob is but it sounds a bit disconcerting … I don't know about 'flash' or 'mobs' but I don't like the context of either word."

The list, which she is keeping updated, shows at the moment: 36 Contempt Party Members, 4 Bloc, and 1 each NDP and Lib, too important/busy/scared to show up and face their actual or potential constituents.

Many of DJ!'s faves are on the list, but the funniest excuse was offered by Cheryl Gallant who 'stormed' out of a live radio broadcast because 'she wouldn't participate in a debate in which one candidate is prevented from taking part'. The Greenie was left out. Who knew Cheryl was such a fan of democracy?

Given that some of them are the biggest idiots among Contempt Party candidates -- I know, that's saying something -- what could possibly worry their handlers about live, unscripted, un-vetted, free-wheeling debate?

Oh. Right.

What a terrible waste of comedy WIN!

Je suis désolée.

Check back with McGregor's list. It's been updated twice since I snared the link this morning.

For me, the most low-down, dirty-rotten, despicable thing done to women by the Harper Regime was killing Sisters in Spirit. Pick the most disadvantaged group in the country and stomp them. Way to go, Stevie!

Tuesday, 19 April 2011

When I was researching this post about Con candidates Larry 'Touchdown' Smith and Agop Evereklian, I found a series of investigative journalism that Rue Frontenac had published with regard to connections between Tony Accurso, ex-PMO politburo mouthpiece Dimitri Soudas and Sen. Leo Housakos.

A case of behind-the-scenes political interference involving Harper's PMO, the City of Montreal and businessmen in the construction industry has resurfaced. An investigation by the CBC and the Globe and Mail revealed that part of the showdown was played around the appointment of the CEO of the Port of Montreal in 2007. Former minister and Senator Michael Fortier broke the silence surrounding a campaign of persuasion, pressure and threats on specific board members.

What jumps out from this sordid tale is that Dimitri Soudas is a big-time prevaricator and small-time fixer.

This is likely only the tip of an iceberg, hopefully one that will further sink the Contempt Party.

Fortunately this adolescent, wise beyond her years, was not intimidated by the aggressive tricks used by a no-choicer.

Most people would say praying to end abortion is harmless. But, Palmquist has other tactics as well. This week, she confronted a 14-year-old girl entering the clinic about her decision to abort her fetus. [...] while the young girl was sitting in the clinic, Palmquist sent her a text message [which] said "if you go through with this, we've named your baby Britney."

People like Terry Palmquist would forcibly prevent women from exercising their right to choose. Since zygote zealots can't forcibly confine women in prison until they give birth, they are currently attacking Planned Parenthood through political means.

Or it might be a BQ dirty trick, since the incumbent could lose his seat to NDP Boivin - who once held the riding of Gatineau for the Libs. These allegations against Boivin have been raised in the past and she has clearly stated that they are unfounded.

Montreal newspaper Le Devoir reported Tuesday that Boivin did not actually leave the [Liberal] party for ideological reasons as she has previously stated, but because she hired a woman to work in her office the Liberals say was her same-sex partner and then refused to acknowledge she had broken the rules. [...]

Boivin flatly denied the allegations, saying that she knows all the rules and she never broke them. “These anonymous sources should come out of the shadows and have the courage to defend these allegations,” Boivin said in a statement on Tuesday, where she also announced her intention to defend her integrity and give legal notice to Le Devoir and the journalist who wrote the story. [...]

NDP officials say that was always their understanding of why she joined their party, noting she had voted with them – and against the Liberals – on votes like the missile defense system and legislation concerning the right to strike. [...]

Boivin told a news conference in Gatineau on Tuesday that she has been consistent in saying no every time she has been asked whether she had hired a same-sex partner to work in her office, a question that came from both the Liberals and the NDP. Boivin noted that she gave the same answer to [Toronto] Star reporter Richard J. Brennan when he asked her about the rumour in the past.

Brennan has written previously about the BQ and his language suggests that he is not sympathetic to that party - nor to the NDP.Le Devoir has been relentlessly investigating Contempt Party candidates for their affiliations to extreme rightwing and fundamentalist religious groups during this federal election. This may have led to pressure on the editorial board to "balance" this reporting by publishing something dodgy about an Opposition party's candidate, particularly one who might be endangering a BQ incumbent's prospects for re-election.Canadian politics have shifted; hateful political tactics increasingly replicate the polarized ambiance in the US. We can thank the Contempt Party and its leader, Emperor Stevie Spiteful for importing these toxic substances. At this point, I'm thinking that someone close to the BQ or the Cons is the source for this contemptible product of trash journalism.BTW, the ADQ, which has formed an alliance of convenience with the CPC and Alberta's Wild Rose Party is not known for supporting gay and lesbian human rights.

Reality check: Ignatieff record doesn’t match words on women’s right to choose

April 17, 2011

Michael Ignatieff today professed his personal support for abortion access.

What he didn’t tell the crowd gathered at his town hall in Vancouver? In December, ten Liberal MPs stood up in favour of a Conservative Private Member’s Bill that risked criminalizing abortion providers and promoted an anti-choice agenda.

In fact, when the Liberal caucus introduced a motion to guarantee a “full range” of family planning options in Canada’s G8 commitments to Child and Maternal Health last March, their own members caused the motion to fail. Mr Ignatieff left this fact out today when he spoke about the G8 initiative.

Some of that is true. Those ten Fucking Harper Liberals® did vote in favour of Rod Bruinooge's lying POS bill, C-510, supposedly to penalize 'coerced' abortions.

And, yes, the Fucking Liberals® did screw up the no-brainer vote against the Cons' hypocritical 'maternal health without family planning' initiative.

But as the CBC's own Reality Check points out, Iggy was there for the second and voted against it.

But [Iggy] did specify what his position is on abortion and indicated that not everyone in his caucus shares his view.

He's OK with that because, as he explained it, abortion is an issue of conscience.

"I want you to know what my position, the position of most of my party is," he said Sunday.

"I say most for a reason. We're talking about abortion, these are issues of conscience. A democratic society that truly respects freedom of belief, and freedom of opinion, cannot compel in matters of abortion," he said.

Ignatieff's position by the way is that he believes in defending a woman's right to choose and that there should be public funding support for "the full gamut" of women's reproductive health services, both at home and overseas, he said Sunday.

I do NOT agree with Iggy's position that choice is a conscience issue. It is a human rights issue.

But these are Fucking Liberals® we're talking about here. They are the poster children for 'Opportunistic Politicians R Us'.

I expected better of the Fucking NDP®.

With the continuing attacks on the Liberals, rather than joining forces with them to defeat a common enemy, the Fucking NDP® was fast losing my respect.

Now, with this totally sleazy move, they've lost my vote.

That's it. It's over between us, Jack.

Until the Fucking NDP® finds its conscience again and loses Jumping Jack Flash as leader, I'm outta there.

Luckily, in my riding, the Con has less chance than a snowball in hell. So I'm holding my nose and voting Fucking Liberal®.

Monday, 18 April 2011

While I've been consumed by the Canadian federal election, I've found time to be dismayed by the idiotic -- and endless -- brouhaha over abortion going on in the Excited States.

If you've heard screeching about the Tea Baggers' crusade to defund Planned Parenthood and wondered how it turned out, Katha Pollitt writing in the Guardian has a summary.

The headlines are all about how the Democrats refused to cave to Republican demands to remove funding from Planned Parenthood and saved the day for women's reproductive health – at least until September, when the GOP and its media spokespeople will crank up their misogynistic fog machine all over again.

It's hard to see how they'd go further: Arizona's Jon Kyl claimed on the floor of the house that "90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions". It's actually about 3%, and his office later said his statement was "not intended to be factual". Rush Limbaugh claimed that "Planned Parenthood is a money-laundering operation for the Democrat party". Glenn Beck said that only "hookers" use Planned Parenthood. In fact, one out of every five women has visited a PP clinic, including this writer.

The Democrats did cave on one of the Tea Baggers' demands, though. The city of Washington, DC, cannot use its own money to fund abortions for poor women on Medicaid.

Why did they do this?

Because they could.

The U.S. Constitution allows for the creation of a special district to serve as the permanent national capital. The District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state and is instead directly overseen by the federal government. . . .

Washington, D.C., is governed by a mayor and a 13-member city council. However, the United States Congress has supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. Residents of the District therefore have less self-governance than residents of the states. The District has a non-voting, at-large Congressional delegate, but no senators. D.C. residents could not vote in presidential elections until the ratification of the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961.

A spokesperson for D.C. Planned Parenthood clinic says the ban will not prevent abortions, just delay them while poor women find the dough -- $400 for a first trimester procedure -- so abortions will be later, more expensive, more stressful.

Pollitt says:

This point has been made so often, to so little effect, that I sometimes wonder if the anti-choice plan is not actually to prevent abortion but simply to make it as awful as possible for the woman. Many of the 370-plus anti-abortion bills now wending their way through state legislatures are simply about creating misery, anxiety and fear – forcing women to view ultrasounds, see anti-choice counsellors, listen to scripts claiming falsely that abortions cause breast cancer and infertility, and wait, wait, wait for their procedures.

'As awful as possible.'

Yup.

So, why did the Democrats cave on this?

Because they had to.

The Rethuglicans have a MAJORITY in the House and can shriek and lie and stomp their little feet and, in fact, cause the entire federal government to shut down if they don't get their way.

Is this starting to sound familiar to our Canadian readers?

Stephen Harper says he will not re-open the abortion issue even if he gets a majority.

You believe that? His base doesn't. They're going to turn out in droves to ensure that he gets his majority so that abortion, equal marriage, capital punishment, etc etc etc, will all be very much open issues.